Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) torched left-wing NBC News host Kristen Welker on Sunday for suggesting that former President Donald Trump was making false claims about the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous response to Hurricane Helene.
Cotton fielded the activist-minded questions from Welker Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet The Press” while talking about FEMA funds and the staggering amount of money that the administration has given to illegal aliens.
“Trump has made, quite frankly, a series of baseless claims, including that the Biden administration is intentionally withholding aid from areas where Republicans live, also saying that FEMA funds are being redirected to migrants.”
“Both those claims have been debunked,” she claimed. “They’re false.”
When asked why Trump was “confusing people,” Cotton fired back: “I don’t think he’s confusing anyone. I think the administration did get caught flat-footed here and that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been proven to be over-matched by events again.”
He said that the Biden-Harris administration failed by not activating the military immediately to assist with rescue operations, which led to hundreds of people being killed.
“The simple fact is we’re more than a week on, we’re still not conducting recovery operations,” he later added. “They’re still engaged in rescue operations because Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were slow to answer the bell here. They were slow-footed, and they were over matched by events. You even had the secretary of Homeland Security saying there’s not enough money left in the fund. So it is the case that the administration itself, the secretary who oversees FEMA, said there’s not enough money left in the fund. And they have been spending billions of dollars for the last four years to move migrants from our border, to put them up in hotels, and give them room service and maids. That’s simply a fact.”
When Welker sought to defend the administration by claiming that the money was not from disaster relief, Cotton fired back: “It is true that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security have been spending billions of dollars on migrants.”
“Now, I understand some people say they’re separate funds, but we just passed a short-term spending bill,” Cotton said. “It’s very common for the administration to come and ask for permission to move money between funds, especially to prepare for emergencies.”
“And, second, I would note that this administration seems to have no problem finding money when they want to spend it on their priorities,” he continued. “When they need hundreds of billions of dollars to pay off student loans for graduate students in gender studies programs they somehow find it. When it’s trying to get helicopters to deliver food and water and cellular service and life-saving medicine into these mountain valleys, they somehow can’t seem to find the money.”
WATCH:
Welker: “Do you think this is a time to falsehoods aside like FEMA funds being redirected to migrant?”
Sen. @TomCottonAR: “It is true that FEMA and DHS have been spending billions of dollars on migrants… This administration seems to have no problem finding money when they want… pic.twitter.com/SGgxZ7BcHZ
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 6, 2024
